Breakfast with Santa

Saturday morning my ward had a breakfast and then Santa came and visited the kids.  Tyler is at a really fun age where he loves to see Santa and tell him what he wants for Christmas.  He did tell him he wanted some binoculars and a telescope (neither of which I got him).  Josh is at the age where he really hates Santa and cries when placed on his lap.  It was a good breakfast and fun to see the kids with Santa.

Later that day we had our annual friend Christmas party.  This year Mindy hosted it at her house it she did a really good job.  Lots of people came and I think everyone had a good time.  Sometimes this is the one time a year that we get to see some of our friends from high school.  We eat yummy food and then do a white elephant gift exchange.  Tony and I got some pretty ghetto stuff that we plan on re-gifting at other parties that we have.  That's the fun part of white elephants.  The kids had tons of fun and Tyler was super sad to leave.  I say it was a very successful party.
On a totally unrelated note: Josh does not like it when you go into a room and shut the door.  He doesn't like to feel excluded.  When Tyler goes to the bathroom he shuts the door so that Josh won't get into the toilet while he is going potty.  So what almost always ends up happening is Josh is screaming at the door and Tyler screaming back "the toilets open."  It is extremely funny to listen too...and very loud.  Funny kids.

Visit to Daddy's work

Today the boys and I made the drive up to the Ogden Cannery to visit Tony and see his new work.  The drive wasn't too bad, but I can already tell that we won't be visiting Daddy at work as much as we used to.  It was nice to put faces with the people that Tony has been talking about.  It seemed pretty busy with volunteers and missionaries canning the meat, but a good busy.  Tyler and Josh seemed to like seeing the process and all the machines that were running.  It definitely seems like they don't get small children in there very often.  Tony is the only worker there with small kids, the next oldest has kids in Jr. High and High School.  Kind of a funny change from the younger guys at the Dairy.  We stayed about 40 minutes.  It was a fun change in our schedule.  I was invited to go up to join Tony for their Christmas lunch in a couple of weeks, so I will be there again soon.  The boys will play at Grandma Margie's while I make the trip up.  I am making it seem like it is hours away, really it was about 45 minutes.  Not too bad at all.

Family Pictures

We got family pictures taken yesterday.  The boys did pretty good.  Josh was the hard one this time and Tyler did really great.  It was fun and I am glad that they are over.  Here are some of the pictures:

Playing in the Snow

Tony and Josh driving Tyler around

Yesterday we went over to my parents house and played with their four-wheeler and sled.  The boys (all three of my boys) had such a great time and so did I.  Tyler just laughed with delight as he was pulled him on the sled from the four-wheeler.

Tyler in all his glory - happy as can be

Josh spent most of the time riding with Tony on the four-wheeler, but we did get him on a sled with Tony and I a couple of times.  He really liked riding on both the four-wheeler and the sled.  I was surprised how well he did.  My dad even got a couple new sleds and one is for older riders and I thought that one was super fun.  Tony drove me around for a while on it and I think that I fell off like 5 or 6 times, but it was totally fun.  I cant wait for it to snow some more so that we can go back.

Tony and Josh riding on the sled

My niece and her friend came over and Tony was so nice to pull them all around for about an hour.  Tyler ended up outside playing for about two hours.  I can't wait to see him up at the cabin with all that snow.  Tyler loves the snow so much, and so do I.  He tells me, "I am so happy it snowed," and I always say "Me too."

Tony and Josh pulling me on the new super fun sled

Later that night we had our ward Adult Christmas Dinner.  It was nice to chat with ward friends and enjoy a meal without noisy children.  Teagan came over and watched the boys and they had a good time.  I really should ask her to babysit more often.  She'll be a senior next year and then off to college.  Wow, that is crazy to think.  Her birthday is on Tuesday and she'll be 17.  My baby sister...time goes by too fast.

Store bought milk

Tonight we had to buy store bought milk.  Since Tony worked at the Dairy we rarely had to buy milk from the store because he always brought it home from work.  Today we ran out of the last of Deseret Dairy milk and had to buy some milk from Costco.  It was a little sad.  We will miss that yummy milk and chocolate milk...and butter...and cheese...but hey now Tony can bring home canned meat...I am a lucky lady.  Okay, they do more then just can meat.  They also do frozen fruit, and beef stew, and canned green beans...so really not too bad at all.
We have had a pretty good week.  Monday was super hard because Tyler, Tony, and I ended up getting the stomach flu that day and it wasn't pretty.  Lucky for us Tyler didn't get it too bad and Tony and I had most of our issues later in the day.  The next day we all felt better.
Tony is still really enjoying his job.  I am really happy about that move for him.  The drive is still long, but he is doing okay with it.  We are thinking about taking the boys to visit his new work next week, so I will have to see what I think about the drive.  We are excited to meet his new work family and see the machines at the Cannery.
The Christmas season is in full swing and it is exciting and fun.  We have our first Christmas party tomorrow at our ward.  They have an annual Adult Christmas dinner.  I am excited to get out without the boys for a couple hours.  Teagan is going to come and babysit.  I hope that Josh is good for her.  He can be kind of a pill these days...okay he can be a big pill these days.  But I still love him...cute as can be!

BYU of U...and the stomach flu

Yesterday was the big game, BYU vs U of U.  We went to Tony's parents to watch the game.  On the way there, Josh threw up all over him self.  We had to pull over and clean him up and then we went over to Tony's parents.  His coat, car seat, and cloths needed washing so we threw them in the washing machine right away.  I cleaned out the car seat and then the car too.  I really hate the smell of curdled milk throw up...it is the worst.  Of course that is mainly what Josh throws up these days, yuck.
We changed him and let him play.  We tried to give him a little protein water, but he threw that up as soon as he drank it.  So it just had to run its course.  He was pretty sad during the whole game and just snuggled right up to Tony and then he would throw up what little he had in his system every hour or so.  Then he had kind of a rough night, but he seems to be doing better today.  Luckily this stomach flu thing is short lived.  I just hope that the rest of us don't get it...only time will tell.
The game was a fun one to watch.  BYU played pretty good and should have won the game.  They ended up loosing by one point.  I think that they definitely played better then the Utes and deserved to win, but thing went the Utes way this time.  I like when they play each other because it seems like no matter how good or bad each team plays that season, they are pretty well matched during that game.  BYU is totally a young team, so we should only see them get better and better.  I look forward to next season.  Even though I graduated from the U, I have always had strong feelings towards BYU (especially football).  It is nice that my in-laws are big BYU fans too, we get to enjoy these types of events together.  Tyler now thinks that we can only watch football at grandma's house.  He's a pretty funny kid!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving as usual.  We spent the morning at home and then headed to Tony's parents for dinner.  His mom's oven caught on fire, so they had to take it to her sisters house to finish cooking.  It was so weird for that to happen.  The boys played with all the kids and then we ate some yummy food.  Mostly it was Tony's family and his Aunt's family.  It was nice to spend time with extended family that we don't see very often.
After we had some dessert we headed to my parents to visit with them and that side of the family.  It was fun to visit with them as well.  Josh was super tired, so we had to cut that visit short and headed home.  It was a good day and we all had good times.
On Friday Tony and I decided to head to a few stores while they were all having good sales.  We didn't wake up super early or anything, we just got up and ate and then took the boys to Tony's mom's to play.  Turned out about perfect at the stores.  We first went to Target and it wasn't busy at all.  9:00 am seems to be a good time to go.  We got what we wanted and then headed to Sears.  It wasn't too bad there either.  We also got what we wanted and then headed to Ikea.  We were looking for a new TV stand, but decided that the one from Ikea wouldn't work for us.  So then we stopped at Sam's Club and the Walmart.  Walmart was probably the busiest, but really not too bad either.  They had police officers standing around the electronics section of the store.  I though that was interesting.  So it turned out to be a really fun, good day of shopping.  We later found a TV stand on Costco.com that we liked and ordered.  Christmas shopping is pretty much done!

I love the Snow

The view from our back door

It started snowing last night and ended up snowing about 8-9 inches by the time we woke up.  It was so beautiful.  Tyler was so excited when he saw it, he wanted to get changed and go play in it right away.  I made him wait until after breakfast and then Tony and Tyler went and shoveled the sidewalks and driveway.  We don't have a snow blower, so it is kind of a lot of work.  Tyler loved every minute of it.  Yesterday we found a fun kids shovel for $5 at WinCo, so we got it for Tyler and he put it to good use last night and this morning.  Josh and I watched from inside the house.  I am sure Josh would have rather been out in the snow, but it was way too cold.  Like 30 degrees.  Tyler
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 said today, "I'm really happy that it snowed."  It was just so cute.

Tyler "helping" Tony with his very own shovel

Last Tuesday I took the boys to the doctors because Tyler complained that his ear hurt.  The doctor checked and said that he did have an ear infection.  Tyler did a great job at letting her see in his ears and check everything.  I was very glad since it was just me there with the two boys.  Then after she was done with Tyler, I asked if she would check on Josh's ears, just to be safe.  Josh did pretty good too with her looking in his ears, but she said that they looked pretty red.  So both boys are on a antibiotic and taking their medicine really well.  Tyler used to HATE taking meds, but has done so well this go around.  It is nice to see him growing up a little bit.  They both seem to be doing tons better now.  Their runny noses are gone and they are happy campers.  Lets just hope and pray that it can stay that way for a while!

Tony's first week on the job

It has been a little different week for us at the Steenblik household.  Normally Tony would work Monday through Thursday, leaving us Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to enjoy being together as a family.  But this week and for now on Tony will have Mondays off and work Tuesday through Saturday.  Also Tony now doesn't get home until about 5:00 pm.  This will take some getting used to for me as I have been so lucky to have him home generally around 2:30 everyday.  Now I feel like a "real" house wife who has to have dinner cooking when her husband gets home.  I am sure that sounds silly, but it's true.
Tony says that he has really liked it so far.  It is really different from what he was doing at the Dairy and he really likes that.  He gets to work with volunteers and missionaries all day.  The machines at the Cannery aren't hard to learn and Tony is feeling confident that he will master them quickly.  Tony is very mechanically minded, so he is really good at learning machines quickly.  He is definitely the young kid there.  The other guys are all a good 15 years plus older then Tony.  But he doesn't mind.  He likes who he works with and really likes his boss.  Since he drives there so early it only takes him about 45 minutes to get there in the morning and about 55 in the evening.  We still aren't sure if we will stay or move.  We will see how Tony is feeling about the drive in a couple months.  Me and the boys plan to visit him on Wednesday.  That should be fun to check out his new digs.  So for the first week, not too shabby.  This seems to have been a really good move for him and I am excited about the possibilities it will bring.

Happy Anniversary...and a new job!

Today is Tony and my 7 year wedding anniversary.  To celebrate we dropped the kids off at Tony's parents house on Friday afternoon and then started our weekend adventures - without children.  First I must say...THANK YOU, THANK YOU to Tony's parents for taking the boys this weekend.  We knew that they were in good hands and having a wonderful time, so that made it tons easier to leave them for a couple days.
We first went to Shopko and did a little shopping before heading down town to our hotel.
While we were driving, Tony got a call from the manager of the Ogden Cannery where he had interviewed a couple of weeks ago.  We were told that he should find out about the job by the end of last week and we were really hoping that he would get the job in Ogden (otherwise we could have been moving to Mesa, AZ).  While talking to the manager, Tony was offered the job in Ogden and he wants him to start on Tuesday.  They work four ten hour shifts, Tuesday through Friday.  Tony got some more details before he hung up and told me the good news.  WHAT A BLESSING!!!  This is a very exciting opportunity for Tony, and I am so proud of him and how hard he has worked to get where he is.  We have had to be very patient, and it seems like that patience is paying off.  He moved up to level 14 and is now a "Master Production Technician."  It came with a little raise, so that is great for us so we don't feel like things are quite so tight.
So with our good news Tony decided to run by the Dairy and talk to his (old) boss to talk to him about the move.  We went and talked to a couple of his bosses there and they were all very excited for him.  They knew about the move before Tony did.  He told them that he would come in on Monday to get his things and say his good byes.
Then it was off to The Embassy Suites.  We checked in and decided to go straight to the hot tub.  Then we went and got ready to go to dinner.  We ended up at Wingers, where the service sucked, so they gave us our meal free.  Then we went back to the hotel to hang out...and stuff.
We tried to sleep in as much as we could, but by eight we were both wide awake.  So we went down and ate some yummy made to order breakfast that the hotel offered as part of our room.  It was pretty good.  After getting ready we went and did a little shopping.  We went places like the Distribution Center, Costco, RC Willey, and then went to The Red Iguana for lunch.  It was super yummy.  After we went and saw "The Switch" and the dollar theater.  It was an okay movie.  Worth the $1.50 each we spent.  Then we went back to the hotel to hang out and swim until it was dinner time.  We weren't too hungry around dinner time, so we decided to go to Chili's and share a dish.  After a nice dinner we headed to Smith's Marketplace for some ice cream.  We of course found other things there that we liked so that was fun.  Then back to the hotel to swim, eat the ice cream...and stuff.
Then this morning we woke up, ate breakfast, hung out and then got ready to check out and go to church.  We went to Tony's parents and helped get the boys ready and then we all went to Tony's parents ward for sacrament.  We went home after sacrament and Josh took a really good nap and I unpacked.
It was a really nice weekend and I am glad that we were able to do it.  I am glad that we got such good news to start off our nice weekend.  I am so lucky to have married Tony seven years ago.  He is an amazing husband and father.  We have a great marriage and I love him so much.  Here's to an eternity of more anniversaries.